MNTL Hilights report web (Apr. 2016) - Page 20

ILLINOIS LED PIONEERS
RECEIVE MOST PRESTIGIOUS
U.S. ENGINEERING AWARD
ECE Professor Emeritus Nick Holonyak Jr. and two of his former students, George
Craford and Russ Dupuis, were awarded the 2015 Charles Stark Draper Prize for
Engineering. They shared the prize with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura for
the invention, development, and commercialization of materials and processes for
light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
LEDs are used by billions of people on a daily basis through applications like computer
monitors, cellphone screens, TVs, traffic lights, home lighting, digital watch displays,
medical applications, and many more. In third-world areas without electricity, LEDs
combined with solar cells are bringing light to people who’d previously relied on fire
and kerosene lamps. The $33 billion LED industry has stimulated global job growth
and dramatically lowered the cost of energy.
In 2012 alone, more than 49 million LEDs were installed in the U.S., with an estimated
annual savings of $675 million in energy costs. In 2013, LEDs saw rapid growth in
general lighting applications, reducing U.S. CO2 emissions by more than 12 million
tons. LEDs also produce the greatest amount of light for the energy used, and have
the longest lifetime of any lighting source available.
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